Nineteen Eighty-... Three?
On this date in 1983, history was made. Pity no one was awake to see it.
The most famous single commercial ever shown was Apple’s 1984 ad introducing the new Macintosh. In between the carnage of the Los Angeles Raiders stomping all over the Washington Redskins, many products, including computers, were advertised. Alan Alda, the sensitive new-age guy himself, pushed Atari computers. Bill Bixby, whose uncle was a Martian and who turned green when he got angry, pedaled systems from Radio Shack. And then there was this:
Directed by Ridley Scott of Alien and Blade Runner fame and dreamed up by the creative minds of the Chiat/Day advertising agency, the 1984 ad was aired one time and one time only, at the Super Bowl. The ad itself cost $900,000, and the air time another $800,000. It garnered millions in free publicity as news programs repeated it, and has become part of the Apple legend. In fact, they repeated it on the twentieth anniversary, this time with the athletic young lady wearing iPod headphones.
In fact, the ad wasn’t made for Mac. It was originally shot for the Apple II in 1982, but the agency shelved it. When Chiat/Day started thinking about a bold ad to introduce the new Mac, they dusted off 1984 and added the voiceover at the end. Apple's board of directors hated it, and Steve Wozniak offered to cover the cost himself if they turned it down, but Steve Jobs and John Sculley stood by their guns. The rest is Apple history.
Also, the ad did not debut at the Super Bowl. The ad really aired at 1:00 a.m. on December 15th, 1983, in Twin Falls, Idaho. Just before the station played the National Anthem and went off the air for the night, Ridley Scott’s dark and dystopian mini-movie was shown to an audience of ... well, no one knows, but it was probably in the single digits. Chiat/Day had to air it on a commercial station so that it would eligible for the 1983 Clio awards.
And now you know... the rest of the story.
The most famous single commercial ever shown was Apple’s 1984 ad introducing the new Macintosh. In between the carnage of the Los Angeles Raiders stomping all over the Washington Redskins, many products, including computers, were advertised. Alan Alda, the sensitive new-age guy himself, pushed Atari computers. Bill Bixby, whose uncle was a Martian and who turned green when he got angry, pedaled systems from Radio Shack. And then there was this:
Click to viewDirected by Ridley Scott of Alien and Blade Runner fame and dreamed up by the creative minds of the Chiat/Day advertising agency, the 1984 ad was aired one time and one time only, at the Super Bowl. The ad itself cost $900,000, and the air time another $800,000. It garnered millions in free publicity as news programs repeated it, and has become part of the Apple legend. In fact, they repeated it on the twentieth anniversary, this time with the athletic young lady wearing iPod headphones.
In fact, the ad wasn’t made for Mac. It was originally shot for the Apple II in 1982, but the agency shelved it. When Chiat/Day started thinking about a bold ad to introduce the new Mac, they dusted off 1984 and added the voiceover at the end. Apple's board of directors hated it, and Steve Wozniak offered to cover the cost himself if they turned it down, but Steve Jobs and John Sculley stood by their guns. The rest is Apple history.
Also, the ad did not debut at the Super Bowl. The ad really aired at 1:00 a.m. on December 15th, 1983, in Twin Falls, Idaho. Just before the station played the National Anthem and went off the air for the night, Ridley Scott’s dark and dystopian mini-movie was shown to an audience of ... well, no one knows, but it was probably in the single digits. Chiat/Day had to air it on a commercial station so that it would eligible for the 1983 Clio awards.
And now you know... the rest of the story.